Major Changes in the Ecology of the Wadden Sea: Human Impacts, Ecosystem Engineering and Sediment Dynamics |
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Authors: | Britas Klemens Eriksson Tjisse van der Heide Johan van de Koppel Theunis Piersma Henk W van der Veer Han Olff |
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Affiliation: | 1. Department of Marine Benthic Ecology and Evolution, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands 2. Community & Conservation Ecology, Centre for Ecological and Evolutionary Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands 3. Department of Spatial Ecology, Netherlands Institute of Ecology (NIOO), Yerseke, The Netherlands 4. Animal Ecology Group, Center for Ecological and Evolutionary Sciences, University of Groningen, Groningen, The Netherlands 5. Department of Marine Ecology, Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Texel, The Netherlands
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Abstract: | Shallow soft-sediment systems are mostly dominated by species that, by strongly affecting sediment dynamics, modify their
local environment. Such ecosystem engineering species can have either sediment-stabilizing or sediment-destabilizing effects
on tidal flats. They interplay with abiotic forcing conditions (wind, tide, nutrient inputs) in driving the community structure
and generating spatial heterogeneity, determining the composition of different communities of associated species, and thereby
affecting the channelling of energy through different compartments in the food web. This suggests that, depending on local
species composition, tidal flats may have conspicuously different geomorphology and biological functions under similar external
conditions. Here we use a historical reconstruction of benthic production in the Wadden Sea to construct a framework for the
relationships between human impacts, ecosystem engineering and sediment dynamics. We propose that increased sediment disturbances
by human exploitation interfere with biological controls of sediment dynamics, and thereby have shifted the dominant compartments
of both primary and secondary production in the Wadden Sea, transforming the intertidal from an internally regulated and spatially
heterogeneous, to an externally regulated and spatially homogenous system. This framework contributes to the general understanding
of the interaction between biological and environmental control of ecosystem functioning, and suggests a general framework
for predicting effects of human impacts on soft-bottom ecosystems. |
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